On creative mapping process

[RHhe82]

I chose to participate in the ’Booked’ CP recently, and I’ve been mapping diligently for a week now or so. I’ve been trying to observe my creative process.

 

So, with the experience of one previously completed map, one one-thirds on the way, a handful of scrapped beginnings, it seems that I tend to create a lot of empty hallways, some random empty rooms before I get into groove.  Process at this point is quite slow. Only after a week with new map, I’m finally able to craft decent rooms and ambushes. It almost looks like I need some sort of ”scaffolding” before I’m able to create something.

 

The risk with this is that there are some decent areas, but there might also be lots of empty hallways or rooms that serve very little purpose.

 

Another side-effect of this is that it takes a long time for me to create anything. Coincidentally this coincides totally with my other endeavours, ie. creative writing, and it’s the same: it takes a long time to get going, and I’m mostly achieving some random drafts of first chapters and that’s it, rarely anything I’d call ready.

 

But to avoid getting sidetracked: how do you guys go on about mapping? Any tips? I’ve been watching DavidXNewton YT-channel, where he created a great vanilla-map in 8 hours. In 8 hours I managed to create a first couple of rooms, and even they follow 90s wad aesthetics. I want to be like that: to be able create a playable, good-looking and fun map. (In creative writing we are often told to write first draft of a novel as quick as possible and then start reworking material).

[Pechudin]

It's really hard for me to map if I do not have a defined idea (at least vague) of what I want. Thus I like to make a draft on paper.

[Somniac]

I seemed to get by for a while by just winging it and letting what I'd laid down at the start (making a starting room to define the visual style etc) inform where I would go, and just keep going until I felt like it was done.

 

My latest map has been in progress since about April and I've made only minimal progress on it since. Same with a Hexen map I've slowly been putting together. I just don't know what I want them to be or how to get the vague ideas in my head into linedefs.

 

It's really frustrating cause for me, if I'd drawn the thing beforehand I'd feel like I had to stick to that and it would remove the chance for happy accidents during the mapping process, the sort of thing that you don't expect but can suddenly take you in a new direction or make you look at what you're doing differently. 

[RHhe82]

I too thought of making a draft on paper, but that proved a bit cumbersome too. The one room I had drawn has been incorporated onto the map, but it’s also the most likely candidate to be scrapped so far.

 

It’s a bit puzzling as to why is it hard for me to create good areas from the get-go; despite having not mapped anything in 20 years, I think I know what I like about IWAD levels and modern PWADs I’ve now started playing and I have for long been watching on Youtube, especially on Decino’s channel. I understand that intriguing design looks far simpler than it actually is, but still…

[Mystic 256]

I usually write down various ideas for maps i want to make in a text document or draw a sketch in krita of them

notes on stuff the pacing and progression, visual design, difficulty. sometimes on the mechanics if its a more gimmicky level, and various other things

 

I also play and study a lot of maps for inspiration and ideas 

 

the easiest part of mapping for me is making the visuals, details, architecture and setting

 

the hardest part of mapping is probably encounters / monster placements, they part that takes me hours to plan and make and test and tweak, its kinda hard to come up with ideas combat wise and even harder to execute the ideas without encountering problems like the monsters not being effective, or the monsters being too easy to cheese, or the combat loop being too easily broken by a weak link, or the encounter just being boring or janky

the reason I haven't made as many maps as I would like to is because of encounters and monster placement

 

[msx2plus]

i generally approach in one of a handful of ways depending on what i've got kicking around mentally:

 

- i have combat encounter ideas and i make ugly, boxy versions of them before stringing them together. these end up being the seed for all of the visual style, detailing, etc. how do the encounters feel? wide open? claustrophobic? tense? stress-relieving? etc. this guides the visuals. the encounters are always 100% complete before i even think about putting down anything other than a wood floor or something.

- i have an idea for a scene and start making one detailed area before branching out. this scene ends up containing most of the visual language for the map i'm about to make in some way, and i develop its themes as i go.

- i have absolutely no ideas and i scribble random shapes, merge abstract geometry, etc, and then use that as a container to build in. having a container helps hugely when i don't have immediate ideas, because i have to solve a mental puzzle of "what fits in here and actually plays interestingly"? more and more i'm enjoying this method the most. here are a couple maps in progress that i began that way (sorry for the low quality "before" pics, they're stream screenshots):

 

 

i've never really been able to block out a map in advance in terms of rooms and corridors, that always feels too constrictive to me and doesn't give me the freedom i need moving forward. drafting then refining a whole project makes the refining aspect seem crushing to me, and i find it more mentally/emotionally fulfilling to solve the puzzle of how the parts work together, how they bleed into each other when already nearly complete.

 

which is to say, it's really just about finding your approach, the one that really activates your almonds. you might hate sketching and love detailing, you might love having complete groundwork to build on. it took me give or take a year to arrive at my current method, and while i don't usually get things done in a day (i tend to obsess over things a bit, so a couple weeks per map on average), i could theoretically knock out a 90s map in an evening.

 

you mention having a lot of drafts but nothing coherent - if i were in that position (and i often am with music, my main occupation), i'd take all of the drafts, find similarities, and find ways to string them together, exchanging ideas between sketches and seeing what can fit where, all that kind of stuff. taking a more abstract approach can help a lot, and being able to embrace that abstraction/chaos as a style and use it to actually say something is really the end goal in a lot of cases.

[Nikku4211]

I usually just make sectors as I go and put in whatever enemies as I go.

 

I don't really plan out things on paper or on a drawing program. I'm bad at planning, and it's hard to stick to a plan when you find out mid-way that it will not work.

[RHhe82]

@msx2plus Those map screenshots look impressive! I'd like to try the maps out! Wish I could catch with some mapping streams...

 

I was still comparing planning maps against planning writing -- I usually write best whenever there is no plan to follow. It's still not easy, but the outcome usually feels much more organic. With maps I don't have that much experience, yet, but I doubt creative processes for me would differ that much depending on what it is that I'm doing.

 

My drafts are almost exclusively just a couple of first rooms, nothing's lost if I accidentally deleted them. On the other hand, they might only be victims of me not being able to see how they would shape up to be if I kept on working on them.

 

The idea of making the encounters first and only then thinking of visuals seems like a good exercise to try out, although I suspect I need to have at least the basic visual idea realized before I can think of encounters. At least that's what seems to be happening with my current map. Hallways were mostly empty and devoid of life, but now that the architectural and visual design of that place is coming together, I'm starting to find it easier to put monsters in place and make adjustment in order to accommodate the layout to better suit ambushes.

[DeathWalkerGT]

Well I actually have never created (finished) a map ever but the only advice I can give you is to try to follow the steps given by John Romero in a youtube video about doom map making it kind of helped me a lot design some maps but in the end I did not like them (my problem) but overall you must use these tips and your imagination, I say again...just let your imagination flow and soon you will create a behemoth (both by artistic and gameplay standards) of a map without even realizing it.

[SMG_Man]

I've followed a few different processes when working on my current WAD. For the first episode/set of 7 levels, I started with a set of level names, and just designed each map from scratch in Doom Builder, with no real warmup or brainstorming phase. Started level 1, finished it, moved on to level 2, and so on.

 

For the second episode, I changed it up a bit. I started by designing the secret 7th level first, and worked backwards from there. Additionally, for the 6 regular maps, I made rough sketches on sticky notes while at work without a computer available, and really thought about how I wanted each level's layout to be before actually building it in Doom builder. I still go with things I come up with spontaneously ofc; there's no way I could get a high level of detail on post-its to begin with. But actually coming up with the entire set of levels first instead of working on them one at a time has allowed me to come up with things I otherwise wouldn't have. It's also really gotten me thinking about how to incorporate 3D floors and other interesting things in a more robust manner, since I can draw in the level geometry a lot faster with a pen than with my mouse before the ideas run away from me.

 

I think I'm gonna stick with sketching each level out first from now on.

[RHhe82]

I clearly need to try sketching someday. I bought a cheap notebook for making lists for ideas, traps and such, and for sketching if need be.

 

Any case, on another thread yesterday I thought out loud that having a routine for mapping would be important, as it seems to be other artistic endeavours. I don't know if it really applies, but after I'm done with my second wad in my adult life, I would like to make smaller maps and faster. I was even thinking of trying out vanilla maps or boom maps. I had already decided on doing that after my first map, just to see if restrictions would make it easier, but UDMF seduced me with its quality of life features (mostly aligning flats and adjusting sidedef- and flat light levels separately, and scripting - although in my second wad, scripting is mostly used for decorational purposes and one bigger fight).

 

In any case, as I said, I wanted to observe my own process. With my second map I found myself getting a bit desperate after the creating a couple of corridors and a courtyard or two, and a few pits. I was sure I had ran into a dead end, my map would never be anywhere near good (even by 90s standards), but last weekend something happened. After I had been creating new rooms and some small ambushes that served very little purposes, and after having felt lots of premature shame that I had promised to make a map for the CP, I suddenly found myself in the groove. All of a sudden areas started to make sense. All of a sudden there was a map I could see become complete.

 

I don't know what happened. I deleted a couple of rooms, a bigger arena that I had planned, which actually was the only room I had sketched when first starting the map. Problems didn't stop there, the map is still WIP, but the end is finally in sight. Just a few rooms, only small additional areas, and polishing. Balancing fights and gameplay flow. Feels good.

 

Anyway, here I am procrastinating. I guess I just wanted to document my thoughts on this. Also, family photos of my map growing up:

 

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